These shots were taken last weekend in Westmount's lower section but some at mid-level up Mount Royal's southern slope. This neighborhood is obviously ritzy and as you go uphill, the air is more rarefied, so to speak... There are streets in the lower section with more pizzazz than in the wealthier more scenic slopy streets up the mountain though. I will post other shots later of Outremont which is the usually convenient french answer to the upper bourgeois anglo enclave of Westmount. It is cliché to think of either of them as Anglo-Franco fortresses though, since both contain crossfertilized. I am a sucker for the solid bourgeois samples of architecture you find in this part of Montreal. Westmount like Outremont, are bastions of financial power in Canada, but more to the point, their residential architecture is rich and varied. One can imagine how treacherous the snowy, icy streets must have been in the 19th century when they had to be cleared by hand and negotiated by horse and sleighs. These sleighs were substituted by buggies come springtime when the leafy streets warmed to a new buzz of activity.
Nice streets in lower Westmount near Sherbrooke street, the main commercial thoroughfare; Somerville, Prince Albert, and Winchester.
Other streets in the general vicinity with a mix of country urban charm typical of the victorian age in Montreal. York and Prince Albert streets;
Prospect and Clandeboye streets. You will find all manner of brick and stone veneer, from ochre sandstone to deep-burnished brownstone houses here. There is the stretch of Dorchester street which became René-Lévesque boulevard
east of here on Montreal municipal territory after the PQ leader's death.
Dorchester street has a long stretch of these houses for three or four long blocks; each different.
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Clandeboye street:
Further uphill are streets with variying degrees of incline with houses ranging from victorian gingerbreads to Palatial Neo-classical. Cote-St-Antoine is an east west street that comprises many styles and sizes like its parallel cousin "The Boulevard" further up the mountain.
An old french style farmhouse leftover from the 19th century, probably protected now. It is for rent.
Across the street from it is another gem; a precursor to the other more manorlike houses that would be built later;
Roslyn and Sherbrooke streets looking south is where the streets become flatter, but only geographically speaking. Westmount Baptist Church now serves a spanish speaking congregation.
This is on the western esge of downtown Montreal on Lambert Closse street near the old Forum where the Canadiens used to play. There is new rezoning plan for higher density and for propping up the area in need of better care. Its streets are home to a lot of immigrants from the middle and far east as well as students, and there is a lot to be done in terms of beautifying and adding green spaces.
Haddon Hall apartment building;
The old Collège de Montréal dates back to 1767. The treaty of Paris had been signed and sealed the fate of the french presence in North America. This school was an affirmation of higher schooling under English rule. The land on which it sits is part of an older fort upon which the sulpician fathers had some property. There is an old tower for warehousing dating back to 1684;
I will post some more of Westmount and Outremont, but also of working class neighborhoods of Pointe St-Charles and Hochelaga later. Hope you liked this one.
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